ENSE Seminar Series – Prof. Yi Lu

Sunday, 3 December 2017
4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Auditorium between Bldg. 4 & 5, Level 0

Prof. Yi Lu received his B.S. degree from Peking University in 1986, and Ph.D. degree from University of California at Los Angeles in 1992. After two years of postdoctoral research in Professor Harry B. Gray group at the Caltech, Dr. Lu started his own independent career in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 1994. He is now Jay and Ann Schenck Professor of Chemistry in the Departments of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering. He is also a member of the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and Carl R. Woese Institute of Genomic Biology.

Title: Functional DNA Nanotechnology and its Applications as Biosensors
for On-site and Real-time Environmental Monitoring

Selective sensors are very useful for on-site and real-time detection in environmental monitoring. While much progress has been made in detecting nucleic acids and proteins, sensing toxic metal ions and small organic toxins remain difficult, because they are very large in numbers, subtle in structural differences and traces in quantities. Rapid detection of microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses are also difficult. We have identified challenges in both fundamental sciences and in technological developments, and have made significant progresses in meeting these challenges.

In fundamental sciences, designing selective sensors based on a single class of molecules for a broad range of targets remains a significant challenge. Most processes are on a trial and error basis where successes in designing agents for one target can be difficult to translate success in designing agents for other targets. To meet these challenges, we have been able to use in vitro selection or SELEX to obtain DNAzymes, a class of metalloenzymes that use DNA molecules exclusively for catalysis, and aptamers, a class of nucleic acids that rivals antibodies that can bind targets of choice strongly and specifically, and use negative selection strategy to improve the selectivity. By labeling the resulting DNAzymes and aptamers, called Functional DNA with fluorophore/quencher, gold nanoparticles, gadolinium or supermagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, we have developed new classes of fluorescent, colorimetric and MRI agents for metal ions and a wide range of other targets with high sensitivity (down to 14 pM) and selectivity (> 1 million fold selectivity).¹

In technological development, there are still significant barriers by the public to adopt new devices or technologies developed in academic laboratories. We are exploring ways to overcome this barrier by taking advantages of the wide availability and low cost of the pocket-sized electrochemical devices such as glucose meters to detect many non-glucose targets, ranging from toxic metal ions (e.g., Pb2+) to toxins (e.g., aflatoxins).² These sensors have been applied for imaging metal ions and other targets in living cells and in vivo to offer deeper insight into their toxicity in biology and in animals.³

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1. a) Juewen Liu, Zehui Cao and Yi Lu, Chem. Rev. 109, 1948–1998 (2009); b) Hang Xing, Kevin Hwang, Ji Li, Seyed-Fakhreddin Torabi, Yi Lu, Curr. Opin. Chem. Eng. 4, 79-87 (2014); c) Juewen Liu and Yi Lu, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 125, 6642-6643 (2003); d) Juewen Liu, Andrea K. Brown, Xiangli Meng, Donald M. Cropek, Jonathan D. Istok, David B. Watson, Yi Lu, Proc. Natal. Acad. Sci. USA, 104, 2056-2061 (2007).
2. a) Yu Xiang and Yi Lu, Nature Chem. 3, 697-703 (2011); b) Jingjing Zhang, Yu Xiang, Miao Wang, Ananda Basu, Yi Lu, Angew Chemie Int. Ed. 55, 732-736 (2015); c)Tian Lan, Jingjing Zhang, Yi Lu, Biotech. Adv. 34, 331–341 (2016).
3. a) Peiwen Wu, Kevin Hwang, Tian Lan, Yi Lu, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135, 5254–5257 (2013); b) b) Kevin Hwang et al., Angew. Chemie Intl.Ed. 53: 13798–13802 (2014); c) Seyed-Fakhreddin Torabi, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 112, 5903-5908 (2015); d) Wenjing Wang, Nitya Sai Reddy Satyavolu, Zhenkun Wu, Jian-Rong Zhang, Jun-Jie Zhu, and Yi Lu, Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. 56, 6798–6802 (2017); e) Zhenkun Wu, Huanhuan Fan, Nitya Sai Reddy Satyavolu, WenJing Wang, Ryan Lake, Jian-Hui Jiang, and Yi Lu, Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. 56, 6163-6174 (2017).